Lie to me
by MrsBCumberbatchIwish
Summary: Set post 'Fathers' Day' The Doctor helps Rose come to terms with the days events


Rose wiped away a stray tear and picked up the silver-framed photo of her father that held pride of place amongst the inter-galactic clutter on her bedside cabinet. She traced a finger over the image and tried to remember what it was like to actually touch his face, hear the sound of his voice, his warmth as he hugged her. It was such a short time ago but the memory already seemed to be fading into obscurity.

Today had seemed so unreal, the whole of it had seemed blurred like a video on fast forward, but she'd been there. She'd met him. She had met the man who was her father and he had been flesh and blood. Not a photo, not a tale spun by a drunken mother, a man. No, he was more than that. An imperfect person, who happen to be a hero.

"Rose…"

She turned and looked at the Doctor, who was standing in the doorway of her room. A ghost of a smile came to lips, one that failed to travel to her eyes.

"This was taken at the wedding rehearsal..." She said, her voice trailing off for a second as she swallowed the lump at the back of her throat. "Before he went out on the stag night. There were eight of them, my dad included. They got absolutely paralytic that night and chained Stuart to a lamppost outside Harrods. He was found there by a security guard at 6am, covered in shaving foam and shivering…"

She looked back down again, tears obscuring her view of the image of the happy, smiling man that she held in her increasingly shaky hands.

"That was my dad, always the clown…" She stopped, unable to stop the fresh tears spilling down her face.  
>The Doctor crossed the room in two large paces and pulled her into his arms.<p>

"I'm sorry" Rose sobbed into his leather-clad shoulder. "I only wanted to meet him, know him…I never meant for all …Oh god"

He tightened his grip on her and gently rocked her in his arms. "I know…" He murmured into her soft blonde hair. "Ssh. I know"

Rose looked up at her friend and companion, and inwardly he shuddered. Some of the innocence, that pure light that had so attracted him to her had evaporated, replaced by a darkness that he knew so well.

It haunted him that he had corrupted her, it was never his intention. He had wanted her to show her the world, his world. He had never wanted his anguish and pain to hurt her. He didn't know how he would with the fact that he had tainted her and that mark would remain forever.

"I know how you feel, Rose" He said. "I really do"

"But that doesn't change what I did. I killed you. I saw that…that thing devour you"

"I left you with a dalek, so I guess we are even"

"That wasn't your fault" she replied, pulling out of his embrace and turning away. She replaced the frame and sat down on her neatly made bed.

"Of course it was. You were there because of me. I put you in that situation." He said, sitting next to her

"I…"Rose started, but stopped as she caught sight of his face. He was crying. Tears silently running down his cheeks. She took his limp and idle hand in her own and squeezed it. He turned to her.

"All the lords that have gone before please forgive for what I am about to do" He silently prayed.

"I have lost my fair share of people, Rose. In the last great time war I lost my whole family. Everyone I ever loved. Everyone I had ever known. All gone in a blink of an eye"

"Are you trying to tell me that I am being selfish" She retorted, pulling her hand away. "That I am crying over spilt milk because he was one person and you lost everybody"

"No" He replied, "One person, One million people, it doesn't matter they all mean the same. They are all someone's loved one. You should feel the way you do Rose. It is natural and it is right."

He stopped and wiped a last remaining tear from his cheek.

"What I am trying to say is that I have been there. Rose, I have done what you have done. I tried and failed to save my people"

"What?" She said, surprise clear in her voice. "But…but you said that?"

The Doctor stood up and turned away, "I know what I said" He replied quietly. "I lied. Tell me what person, alien, entity if they had one of these…" He gestured to the TARDIS. "Would not try to go back and save those they loved"

He turned back to her. She was sat bolt upright on her brightly coloured blanket, a relic of one of their journeys through time, staring at him, a look of astonishment on her beautiful young tearstained face.

"I'm not perfect, Rose" He explained. "I may say that I am, but Lord knows that I'm not. I'm just like you. Ok not physiologically, but I am flawed just like you and your kind. I have feelings too"

He walked back to the bed and sat next to her once again. "I can love and that emotion is just as strong as humans have for other humans. So yes, I went back. I went back in time. I tried to stop the wiping out of my whole planet, but I couldn't. I went back again and again and again but each time I failed. I had to watch as my family, my friends, my kind burned again and again. I couldn't save a single one of them. No matter what I did, they all perished"

He felt her take his hand again, her fingers interlocking with his. He turned to look at her. A gaze of mutual understanding and loss passing between the two of them.

"It took me time to realise…" He continued, feeling a lump form at the back of his throat. "That time always gets what it wants." He grinned, "Do you know how hard that was for me to accept. Here I am, a Time Lord. I am can go where I want in time and space, but I don't control it, I am just a passenger it allows along for the ride"

His smile slipped away.

"You are about to say that we have changed time. The two of us have changed things that have made time and space different, but that was only because time wanted to be changed. If time does not want to be mended then it won't. Some things are just meant to be. Do you know what I mean?" He asked

She nodded. "You mean my Dad. You mean that it was his time to go…to die"

"It was meant to happen, Rose. I know that is hard for you to hear, especially right now. But he was meant to go."

"Is that why…" She said, sobs rising up her throat. "Is that why the car kept driving round"

He nodded sadly and looked round the room, anywhere which was not her face. Rose picked up the photo again.

"At least, at least I got to meet him"

"And that is what you have to remember." The Doctor said, returning his eyes to look at her. "He loved you Rose, only a man who could love some one as unconditionally as he loved you would do what he did"

He gently reached over and brushed her forehead with his lips.

"And you. What about what you did?" She asked, watching as he pushed himself off the bed and stood up.

"I would die for you, Rose. You only have to ask"

She smiled again, this one reaching her eyes, and gently she kissed his hand that she was still grasping, before releasing it.

"Right" He said, fighting the urge to sob at the simple gesture, "Sleep for you"

He helped her off with her jackets and pulled back the bed clothes. He watched as she made herself comfortable amongst her mound of pillows and then covered her up. Tucking the sheets round her to make sure she would be warm enough during the night.  
>"Goodnight Doctor" Rose murmured sleepily, turning off her bedside light<p>

"Goodnight" He replied, gently brushing some stray hairs off her face, before he quietly made his way from the room He stopped at the door and turned back. "Rose…"

"Yes" She said, slightly lifting her head

"If you…."

"I know. Goodnight Doctor"

He leaned against the doorway and watched as she relented to long needed sleep, her hands still gripping on to the photo of the man, who had saved both their lives.

If she knew what he had done, she would hate him, but he done it for the best. He knew now she would be okay. The terror of this day would fade and she would come to understand it more and more as time went on.

The Doctor, smiled to himself. He never would of thought he would have something in common with Jackie Tyler, apart from Rose herself, of course. But now he did; now he knew that sometimes that little white lies said in the most positive light can help at times.

And now he knew why he had always been taught that if anything ever happened, why he couldn't go back and save them. And that, a thought that had always haunted him, caused him countless nightmares, would finally put him at the peace with the one thing that he'd always resented. Time itself.


End file.
